S&S Cycle - Vintage Motorcycle TECH TALK

Pretty much anything not covered by the topics above. Short lived production bikes or vehicles, Electrical, Tires, Paint, Brakes, etc. Use this for tech questions, and "Shoot the Bull" for general conversation, no tech.

Not sure if just coincident but we have had a 67 an 66 Galaxie, two 63 Fairlanes and a77 Sportster and 82 FXE all develop starting problems, overheating and plugs all showing lean condition in the past three weeks. Richening the carbs has seemed to fix so far, are we getting this flex fuel here? Also notice occasional backfiring, blueing of pipes and breaking up. Comes and goes before you an even pull over. Acts like water in gas an then clears. Are these signs of flex fuel? 4 different stations here in SW Florida

What a coincidence ! My 90 Sunbird LE Began breaking up, like an ignition miss, just recently. Doesn't do it under 65 mph though. No power loss noted until breakup. My 96 merc marquis usually gets 28.8 mpg. I put another stations fuel in it and the milage dropped to 20 mpg. Tanked up at my regular station again and milage came back up. All milage on the merc were the same routes as usual for what I use it for. No engine breakup on the merc though. Don't know if this really coincides with what is happening to you or not. Fuel is sold in Ohio. Pa

Your right cotten but when combined with pipes blueing an blisters on the insulator tip plus all of a sudden all starting hard. May be my miss trust of our government,but.... somethings smells fishy. Wonder why only vehicles still covered under warranty have just been scrapped for trade ins, maybe now they won't be available to be rebuilt by the big three:)

I mentioned before the reason for the catalytic convertors on vehicles. How they were really put in use to get rid of harsh chemicals produced by industry. Our vehicles are the disposal units for those chemicals. Industry doesn't pay to get rid of them anymore. We do ! Pa

WHEN IT TAKES JUST OVER 1 GAL OF GAS TO PRODUCE 1 GAL OF ALCOHOL THAT GIVES LESS MPG YOU MUST KNOW THAT THEY DON'T PUT ALCOHOL IN THE GAS TO SAVE ENERGY. BESIDES THEY HAVE TO PUT SOMETHING TOXIC IN THE ALCOHOL TO CALL IT ETHANOL. I DO HAVE TWO QUESTIONS THAT MAYBY SOMEBODY CAN ANSWER. IS THERE 10% OR MORE ALCOHOL IN ALL PUMP GAS EVEN IF NOT STATED ON THE PUMP? DOSE ANEYBODY KNOW WHAT THE DIFERENCE IS IN THE SUMMER AND WINTER BLEND GAS THAT WE HAVE GOTTEN HERE IN THE NORTHEAST FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS ( I SUSPECT THAT THEY DON'T ADD ALCOHOL IN THE WINTER AND THAT THEY HAVE ADDED ALCOHOL FOR YEARS IN THE SUMMER (CLEAN BURN GAS)) ? IF YOU WANT TO SEE SOMETHING INTERESTING PUT SOME GAS IN AN OPEN GLASS JAR AND LEAVE IT IN THE SUN FOR TWO DAYS.

Not knowledgeable about other states but in Ohio they must note alcohol % content and octane. They don't have to tell you about anything else which may be in it though. I always tell the young generation that todays fuel smells nothing like yesterdays fuel. Even early non leaded fuels smelled different than todays fuels.

Now that we can no longer rely on the color of our plugs to tell how carbs are adjusted. Do we only rely on ear an tach, or seat of the pants feel? Has anyone ever used a colortune set to adjust their carbs, do they work well or do they need to be adjusted for a different color burn too? It'll be a pain to have to re-adjust our carbs every time they get a new load of waste for us to burn off.

Every spring the alleys and dumpsters are littered with weedwhippers and lawnmowers that have succumbed to rotted hoses, diaphagms, or whatever.In Central Illinois, I have only found a Phillips 66 with a non-ethanol pump. and of course, it is much more expensive without the government subsidies. (Meaning: You are paying for the ETOH anyway as a taxpayer!)

Brazil is enjoying tremendous success with ETOH fuel, because it replaces gasoline completely for dedicated vehicles.But that makes too much sense.

The mechanical issues were are discussing are, like it or not, actually political issues.

Strange how we had this conversation awhile back about Brazil an alcohol, an now we're right back into it . Alot of you have allready experienced these problems for years now, just wondering was it just sprung on you with no real notice? I went to the stations we got our gas at an there are no signs to warn us an the managers know nothing, thats corporate bussiness is all the one had to say.

I actually called up the state and talked to the guy who handle clean air/gas issues, and he told me there is no federal requirement to label pumps, and the presence or absence of a Contains Ethanol label on the pump meant nothing. While ethanol gas is not required in about half my state he told me most of the stations sold it anyhow, because the suppliers push it one them, and they get credits from the gov for selling it. We did have a few stations in the next county that sold real gas, but they have gone over to E10. I have a buddy who is obsessed with the issue, and carries a tester. He has found the E10 sold here varies from 5 to, occasionally, 25%! Which would be enough to cause wierdness.

I make my own real gas now for use in my small engines and for putting in my bikes for storage over winter by dumping a gallon of water in 5 gallons of gas, then pouring off the gas from the top after the water bonds with the ethanol and settles to the bottom. Then a throw in a dab of stablizer. A bit nuts, perhaps, but everything starts up so nicely in the spring, without having to rebuild the carbs!

X-WLCH wrote:I DO HAVE TWO QUESTIONS THAT MAYBY SOMEBODY CAN ANSWER. IS THERE 10% OR MORE ALCOHOL IN ALL PUMP GAS EVEN IF NOT STATED ON THE PUMP? DOSE ANEYBODY KNOW WHAT THE DIFERENCE IS IN THE SUMMER AND WINTER BLEND GAS THAT WE HAVE GOTTEN HERE IN THE NORTHEAST FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS ( I SUSPECT THAT THEY DON'T ADD ALCOHOL IN THE WINTER AND THAT THEY HAVE ADDED ALCOHOL FOR YEARS IN THE SUMMER (CLEAN BURN GAS)) ? IF YOU WANT TO SEE SOMETHING INTERESTING PUT SOME GAS IN AN OPEN GLASS JAR AND LEAVE IT IN THE SUN FOR TWO DAYS.

X-WLCH wrote: BESIDES THEY HAVE TO PUT SOMETHING TOXIC IN THE ALCOHOL TO CALL IT ETHANOL.

Ethanol, or ethyl alcolhol is just one of many kinds of alcohol, some others being methyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol. Methyl alcohol (or methanol) is also called wood alcohol, and can cause blindness or death with very doses as small as 10 ml. Isopropyl alcohol is also called rubbing alcohol. Distillers don't have to put anything in to call it ethanol, but sometimes they do put in some additive so that people won't drink it. Denatured alcohol is ethanol that has had denatonium benzoate added to make it unpalatable or methanol added to make it poisonous.

X-WLCH wrote: I DO HAVE TWO QUESTIONS THAT MAYBY SOMEBODY CAN ANSWER.DOSE ANEYBODY KNOW WHAT THE DIFERENCE IS IN THE SUMMER AND WINTER BLEND GAS THAT WE HAVE GOTTEN HERE IN THE NORTHEAST FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS ( I SUSPECT THAT THEY DON'T ADD ALCOHOL IN THE WINTER AND THAT THEY HAVE ADDED ALCOHOL FOR YEARS IN THE SUMMER (CLEAN BURN GAS)) ?

I live in Washington state where there has been a difference between winter gas and summer gas for the last 15 or more years. I don't know exactly what they add to make the winter gas (some sort of oxygenator), but I can tell when it's winter gas season because my mileage goes down about 10%. The idea is that it's supposed to make for cleaner emissions, but if you have to use more gas to go the same distance, that would seem to defeat the purpose somewhat.

oddly enough i think there might be some backlash occuring with the whole ethanol debate.

this morning when i was at a local quickie mart i noticed the premium pump had a tag on the hose touting "100% gasoline, no ethanol. reccomended for motorcycles, boat motors, chainsaws, older vehicles lawn equipment etc."

perhaps the marketing people recognize the problems accociated with alcohol in "gasoline" and are finally providing what the consumer wants.

I think that's all we can hope for at this point John. The decency to inform us as to what we are burning, allows us the chance to properly set our vehicles up so as to minimize damage. If the changes are at least consistent we might have a chance, but over nite with no warning is redicules. I thought the gas we burned was regulated not a free for all:)

We had a similar sort of problem here in the UK a few years ago. When leaded petrol was phased out, the oil companies supplied what they called "Lead Replacement Petrol" or LRP as it became known.

The official reason for this was to give owners of older vehicles a fuel with which to run them on; there was however a more practical reason.

Lead destroys catalyctic convertors as you all probably know, and apparently it takes a while (about six months of refilling a tank on the average gas station forecourt) to get rid of all the residual lead before they can put lead-free fuel in. So as to save hassle with warranty claims etc, the fuel companies brewed up LRP as a stop-gap.

With me so far?

Now, over here, we have a thing called British Standards, which is a system of type approval for a variety of commodities and products including gasoline and other fuels. Leaded fuel was made to a certain BS number (don't laugh that's what they're known as! ) and unleaded to another; however LRP being a stop-gap fuel was exempted. This provided an excuse for the fuel companies to shove all kinds of crap into LRP that they wouldn't get away with in the others, resulting in a lot of fuelling hassles. Most of these were blamed on the age of the vehicles concerned of course rather than the fuel!